The Maintenance Plan for the Performance Assessments and Composite Analyses for the Area 3 and Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Sites at the Nevada Test Site (National Security Technologies, LLC, 2006) requires an annual review to assess the adequacy of the performance assessments (PAs) and composite analyses (CAs) for each of the facilities, with the results submitted as an annual summary report to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Headquarters. The Disposal Authorization Statements for the Area 3 and Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Sites (RWMSs) also require that such reviews be made and that secondary or minor unresolved issues be tracked and addressed as part of the maintenance plan (DOE, 2000; 2002). The DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office performed annual reviews in fiscal year (FY) 2006 by evaluating operational factors and research results that impact the continuing validity of the PAs and CAs results. This annual summary report presents data and conclusions from the FY 2006 review, and determines the adequacy of the PAs and CAs. Operational factors, such as the waste form and containers, facility design, waste receipts, and closure plans, as well as monitoring results and research and development (R&D) activities, were reviewed in …

Ancient whole genome duplications have been implicated in the vertebrate and teleost radiations, and in the emergence of diverse angiosperm lineages, but the evolutionary response to such a perturbation is still poorly understood. The African clawed frog Xenopus laevis experienced a relatively recent tetraploidization {approx} 40 million years ago. Analysis of the considerable amount of EST sequence available for this species together with the genome sequence of the related diploid Xenopus tropicalis provides a unique opportunity to study the genomic response to whole genome duplication.

The minimum energy efficiency standards program for household appliances in China was initiated in 1989. Since 1996, CLASP and its implementing partner, LBNL, have assisted China in developing 11 minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for 9 products and endorsement labels for 11 products including: refrigerators; air conditioners; clothes washers; televisions; printers; computers; monitors; fax machines; copiers; DVD/VCD players; external power supplies; and set-top boxes (under development). Before 2003, China's traditional approach to standards development involved small increases in efficiency requirements for implementation within 6 months of a standard's approval. Since 2003, China has adopted a new approach in setting MEPS. This new approach involves the development of two tiers of standards--one for initial implementation and a second tier at a more aggressive level of energy efficiency for implementation three to five years later. The second-tier standard is also referred to as a 'reach standard'. Reach standards have now been developed in China for: color TVs; refrigerators; air conditioners; and external power supplies. This report is presented in five sections. After the introduction in Section 1, Section 2 analyzes the distribution of the efficiency of refrigerators and air-conditioners in China based on data collected by the China Energy Label Center for …

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program Climate Research Facility instrumentation status. The report is divided into four sections: (1) new instrumentation in the process of being acquired and deployed, (2) existing instrumentation and progress on improvements or upgrades, (3) proposed future instrumentation, and (4) Small Business Innovation Research instrument development.

This study is best characterized as new technology development for implementing new sensors to investigate the optical characteristics of a rapidly expanding debris cloud resulting from hypervelocity impact regimes of 7 to 11 km/s. Our gas guns constitute a unique test bed that match operational conditions relevant to hypervelocity impact encountered in space engagements. We have demonstrated the use of (1) terahertz sensors, (2) silicon diodes for visible regimes, (3) germanium and InGaAs sensors for the near infrared regimes, and (4) the Sandia lightning detectors which are similar to the silicon diodes described in 2. The combination and complementary use of all these techniques has the strong potential of ''thermally'' characterizing the time dependent behavior of the radiating debris cloud. Complementary spectroscopic measurements provide temperature estimates of the impact generated debris by fitting its spectrum to a blackbody radiation function. This debris is time-dependent as its transport/expansion behavior is changing with time. The rapid expansion behavior of the debris cools the cloud rapidly, changing its thermal/temperature characteristics with time. A variety of sensors that span over a wide spectrum, varying from visible regime to THz frequencies, now gives us the potential to cover the impact over a broader temporal regime …

Presents the results of a 2,000-hour test of an emissions control system consisting of a nitrogen oxides adsorber catalyst in combination with a diesel particle filter, advanced fuels, and advanced engine controls in an SUV/pick-up truck vehicle platform.

The Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) is one of the world’s premiere test reactors for performing long term, high flux, and/or large volume irradiation test programs. The ATR is a very versatile facility with a wide variety of experimental test capabilities for providing the environment needed in an irradiation experiment. These different capabilities include passive sealed capsule experiments, instrumented and/or temperature-controlled experiments, and pressurized water loop experiment facilities. The ATR has enhanced capabilities in experiment monitoring and control systems for instrumented and/or temperature controlled experiments. The control systems utilize feedback from thermocouples in the experiment to provide a custom blended flowing inert gas mixture to control the temperature in the experiments. Monitoring systems have also been utilized on the exhaust gas lines from the experiment to monitor different parameters, such as fission gases for fuel experiments, during irradiation. ATR’s unique control system provides axial flux profiles in the experiments, unperturbed by axially positioned control components, throughout each reactor operating cycle and over the duration of test programs requiring many years of irradiation. The ATR irradiation positions vary in diameter from 1.6 cm (0.625 inches) to 12.7 cm (5.0 inches) over an active core length of 122 cm (48.0 inches). Thermal and …

This report provides an evaluation of three prototype fuel cell-powered transit buses operating at AC Transit in Oakland, California, and six baseline diesel buses similar in design to the fuel cell buses.

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Letter from Howard Hall Peacock to Jill Lawless and Lori Moffatt dated March 1, 2007 regarding a piece for Texas Highways magazine. The letter contains several handwritten notes and corrections.

The Fermilab Tevatron is currently the only collider capable of producing and studying top quarks. The dominant mechanism for top quark production at the Tevatron is t{bar t} production via the strong interaction. The precise measurement of the cross section of this process is a test of the QCD prediction. In Run II of the Tevatron it should be possible to achieve an experimental error on this cross section which is comparable or better than the current theoretical precision. This paper presents the basic event selection criteria for t{bar t} events at the Tevatron and the latest measurements of the t{bar t} cross section.

Photograph of Monika Antonelli at a party held in her honor. An unidentified woman is speaking while Antonelli listens.

Weekly newspaper from Holliday, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Archer City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The original temporal resolution of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) AERI instruments was 8 minutes, where each cycle consisted of a 3-minute sky-view period and 2-minute views at each of the two blackbody targets. This sampling strategy was chosen to achieve the desired signal-to-noise ratio for clear-sky spectroscopy and profiling studies. To make the AERI observations more useful for cloud research, the temporal resolution has been decreased by an order of magnitude; however, this greatly increases the random error in these observations. This VAP uses a principle component analysis noise filter to significantly reduce the amount of uncorrelated random error in the AERI observations. The noise-filtered 'rapid-sample' AERI observations have approximately the same amount of random error as the original AERI radiance data. The AEROSOL BE VAP provides temporally and spatially continuous vertical profiles of ambient aerosol optical properties including scattering, absorption, and extinction coefficients, single scattering albedo and asymmetry parameter. It uses a combination of passive radiometers, in-situ surface measurements, empirical relationships, climatologies, and model input. It is a direct input to the BBHRP VAP, an ACRF programmatic metric.

Using a standard vibratory horn apparatus, the relative cavitation-erosion resistance of a number of cast alloys in mercury was evaluated to facilitate material selection decisions for Hg pumps. The performance of nine different alloys - in the as-cast condition as well as following a case-hardening treatment intended to increase surface hardness - was compared in terms of weight loss and surface profile development as a function of sonication time in Hg at ambient temperature. The results indicated that among several potentially suitable alloys, CD3MWCuN perhaps exhibited the best overall resistance to cavitation in both the as-cast and surface treated conditions while the cast irons examined were found unsuitable for service of this type. However, other factors, including cost, availability, and vendor schedules may influence a material selection among the suitable alloys for Hg pumps.

Studies conducted at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, have focused on assessing the effectiveness and reliability of novel approaches to nondestructive examination (NDE) for inspecting coarse-grained, cast stainless steel reactor components. The primary objective of this work is to provide information to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the effectiveness and reliability of advanced NDE methods as related to the inservice inspection of safety-related components in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). This report provides progress, recent developments, and results from an assessment of low frequency ultrasonic testing (UT) for detection of inside surface-breaking cracks in cast stainless steel reactor piping weldments as applied from the outside surface of the components. Vintage centrifugally cast stainless steel piping segments were examined to assess the capability of low-frequency UT to adequately penetrate challenging microstructures and determine acoustic propagation limitations or conditions that may interfere with reliable flaw detection. In addition, welded specimens containing mechanical and thermal fatigue cracks were examined. The specimens were fabricated using vintage centrifugally cast and statically cast stainless steel materials, which are typical of configurations installed in PWR primary coolant circuits. Ultrasonic studies on the vintage centrifugally cast stainless steel piping segments were conducted with a 400-kHz …

This report discusses the concept of prevailing party, the equal access to justice act, Awards of Attorneys' fees in Civil Right Cases and Awards of attorneys' fees in Tax cases.

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Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Photograph of Bobby Griffith (navy shirt) and Monika Antonelli (blue shawl) at a party held in honor of librarian Monika Antonelli. Antonelli appears to be having a conversation with Griffith.

Photograph of Bobby Griffith (center back) with cake at a party held in honor of librarian Monika Antonelli. In the foreground two unidentified guest are having a conversation.

Chemoautotrophic endosymbionts are the metabolic cornerstone of hydrothermal vent communities, providing invertebrate hosts with nearly all of their nutrition. The Calyptogena magnifica (Bivalvia: Vesicomyidae) symbiont, Candidatus Ruthia magnifica, is the first intracellular sulfur-oxidizing endosymbiont to have its genome sequenced, revealing a suite of metabolic capabilities. The genome encodes major chemoautotrophic pathways as well as pathways for biosynthesis of vitamins, cofactors, and all 20 amino acids required by the clam.